Adventures in Writing Back Cover Copy

One of the many perks of being an Indie author is having complete creative control over all design, promotional, and marketing elements of your work. Unfortunately, this also means being responsible for writing back cover copy (or BCC if you’re hip to the lingo).

BCC is exactly what it sounds like: the text that goes on the back of your book…and on Amazon, Goodreads, Facebook, blog tours, etc. Anywhere and anyplace that requires a summary. But — and here’s the kicker — BCC is no ONLY what your book is about, it has to SELL your book to readers.

And that is why BCC causes so much frustration and heartache. At least, that’s been my experience (and if you’re following me on Twitter, you got a little taste of that experience last week).

Authors who can churn out BCC like butter, I salute you.

And now, on to the purpose of this post…I think I’ve finally written something halfway decent that I’m halfway happy with…for the moment.

I won’t be sharing it today! Sawry. That’ll come with the cover reveal (squee!). But I did want to talk a little about my process, and get y’all’s tips and tricks to writing BCC.

So, what I did first was write and overly long, over-indulgent first draft and set it aside for months, I think. Then, I brought that version back out when I was ready to seriously get down to business, discovered it was terrible, panicked a bit, and then started doing my research. Research consisted of reading blurbs on Amazon, and trying to pick out a pattern.

Here’s what I found (and how I subsequently structured my working BCC):

• Start with an interesting, yet brief, summary of the MC’s current state/life. Bonus points for quippy one-liners.
• Add the inciting incident (or hint of) that is going to make the MC take action
• Sprinkle in tidbits of his/her journey and/or new friends/companions
• Top that all off with a couple of foreboding statements about the MC’s future

And voila! BCC sundae.

🙂